'Oregon has about the lowest business taxes in the nation.
Nonetheless, Senator Hass’ Finance and Revenue Committee has had a
set of bills on their agenda to give even more take breaks to business.
Every day for seven days now, the argument seems to be about how big the
property tax break will be—someplace between $10 and $35 million a year. The
cost depends on the version of the bills that might finally move forward. SB
611, 570 and 571 and their amendments will sharply reduce local property
taxes for numerous businesses, by millions of dollar a year.
Tax Fairness Oregon is fighting like crazy—to stop the back room
action, negotiated behind closed doors, on these bills. We need your help.
After all, lower property tax receipts are not in the public interest! As we
have seen before, the outcome may not be guided by good public policy—but by
huge political donations.
Comcast, one of the biggest proponents of lowering their own taxes,
gave $222,000 to Oregon election campaigns, and has its lobbyists working
the capitol every day. Other business lobbyists are swarming.
How can you help? Ask your legislators to say “NO” to a
property tax break involving “intangible assets”* for Comcast and other
giant corporations.
Write to the five members of the Senate Finance and Revenue
Committee, Senators Hass, Baertschiger, Boquist, Edwards and Riley at
lro.exhibits@state.or.us.

Feb 19Paul Cauthorn, who moved to submit the proposed parking
permit system near campus to voters, who overwhelmingly defeated it in all
wards, has responded to the latest attempt by council member Roen Hogg to
salvage the plan:
"Roen,
At the 2/17/2015 council meeting you continued to advocate for increasing
neighborhood parking restrictions. I would like to remind you that the
voters in your ward (and the whole city) did not support increasing parking
restrictions. In your ward alone, 999 people voted against the parking
ordinance.
From your statements at the recent council meeting, it
appears that you are ignoring the will of the electorate. I feel that your
personal agenda is overriding your ability to represent the citizens of your
ward and this community. Pushing for a parking district and incorporating
elements from the failed ordinance into the existing ordinance, as you
suggested, demonstrates your disrespect for the voters.
Also statements like, "We have a parking problem in the
neighborhoods, but there is nothing OSU can do to fix that," is
counterproductive to dealing with the root of the problem. Apparently from
statements you made, you believe that more availability of parking on campus
will not reduce the impact to the neighborhoods. That's a ridiculous
assertion. When OSU eliminated free parking lots, increased cost for
permits, and eliminated conveniently located parking lots, of course, this
impacted neighborhood parking densities.
You also made a repeated statement that you do not personally
have adequate off-street parking at your house. Let's be honest about this
situation once and for all.
Your lack of off-street parking is not the fault of your
neighbors, it is not the fault of the commuters, and it is not the fault of
the voters. It was a choice Doug made to reduce parking on your property and
cover what was historically adequate off-street parking with a deck and
landscaping. You are receiving a benefit of a larger backyard as a result of
the choice of removing off-street parking. It is not the community's problem
that you only have one off-street parking place -- it was a choice that was
made and choice that continues to be made.
Moving forward, you have an opportunity to support your other
councilors in holding OSU responsible for the impacts on our neighborhoods.
The voters are supportive of the council taking actions in that direction.
The voters will become outraged, if you continue to ignore the tested and
quantified will of the people.
There are many issues to deal with, other than just parking. It is
time to move forward.
Paul Cauthorn

As the federal grand jury probes deeper into
the actions and transactions of Cylvia Hayes and her bf,Governor Kitzhaber,
old decisions are being dug up and re-examined in light of recent
developments. Among them are the axing of Corvallis resident Catherine Mater
in the wake of a vote to turn down a coal export port,
a firing once portrayed as a sop to a vindictive Republican legislator.
In her most explicit explanation yet, Mater insists that the issue was not
coal, but fraud.
Writing the past week in the Astorian, she says "since Connect
Oregon passage into Oregon law, projects forwarded to the OTC have been
summarily approved ... until last year when a berth improvement project at
the Port of St. Helens was denied funding.
The project proposed to assist coal company Ambre Energy in the
transport of coal through Oregon to foreign energy markets via the Port.
The project was rejected on the basis of not complying with
ConnectOregon legal requirements, but the criticisms — and accolades —
pouring in from the public following the OTC decision squarely focused on
the debate over Oregon’s role in coal.
The real issue surrounding the story is not coal, it’s fraud:
the submittal of fraudulent information to a public entity for the purpose
of securing public funds. The Port of St. Helens submitted a request for $2
million in ConnectOregon lottery funds to pair with a $3 million match the
Port said Ambre Energy had committed for the project. All ConnectOregon
projects are required to have a funding match in order to be eligible for
public funds.
The problem? Coal issue aside — the Port never had a commitment
from Ambre Energy to do the project in the first place — a fact that was
discovered at the commission level after months of project review by Oregon
Department of Transportation staff.
Further, when asked, the Port could not show they had the funds in
their own coffers to guarantee the required match in absence of Ambre
Energy’s funding. To compound the problem, the Port claimed their project
was ‘construction ready,’ but failed to disclose they have a serious
operating permit problem with the Division of State Lands that will negate
construction start up to a year (a fact that would disqualify the project
from being ‘construction ready’ as is required by law).
It seems that no construction at the Port will occur without the
Port securing a new proprietary lease from DSL, a process that requires
months of review and a full public hearing. This, too, was discovered at
commission level.
To exhibit such a reckless disregard for the truth, one can only
conclude that the Port either felt they were above the law, should be
awarded special treatment, or both.
Consequently, the Port project was denied, but another project was
approved at the same time. A Corvallis-to-Albany bike trail project
submitted by Benton County proposed a bike trail to be constructed on
railroad right-of-way between the two cities. Shortly after ConnectOregon
project submittal to ODOT, the county discovered the railroad would deny use
of their right-of-way for the project, placing the county back at square one
for getting the project construction ready.
In response, the county sought private property acquisition for the
project by use of eminent domain and the project is now being contested by
100 percent of the farmland owners whose property will be affected. The
county failed to disclose the railroad easement denial to the commission at
the time of their August decision. As a consequence the project was
unanimously approved for $2 million in public funds — based on
misrepresentation of project status.
Both projects are up for reconsideration at the February OTC
meeting: the former by heavy political pressure to reverse the August OTC
decision to deny project approval at the Port; the latter by citizen demand
to revoke project approval from Benton County.
Both are clear examples of an alarming fact: the Oregon Department
of Transportation lacks oversight on projects submitted for ConnectOregon
funding to ensure against project misrepresentation or project fraud. And,
if OTC oversight is exercised, it is ignored or “removed.”
It is times like this we all need to be reminded that no one is
above the law; no governor; no senator; no government agency; no port."

UPDATE: Jody Wiser of Tax Fairness Oregon adds: "We have an opportunity coming up to get some good news about state
government in Oregon.

Until recently, the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) of the Department
of Transportation (DOT) was Chaired by Catherine M. Mater, president of
Mater Engineering in Corvallis and a senior fellow at the Pinchot Institute
for Conservation. A distinguished Oregonian, Mater was appointed to the
unpaid position by Governor John Kitzhaber. Until, that is, he suddenly
fired her in January.

What happened? Mater stated that she discovered a fraudulent application for
a grant under the ConnectOregon program of the DOT and she voted, along with
two other members of the five-member Commission, to disqualify it. She has
now updated her experience in detail in the Daily Astorian.

As Mater explains, the application requested a berth improvement project at
the Port of St. Helens which would assist the Australian Amber Energy
company in the transportation of coal by train through Oregon to Asian
markets.

Specifically, the request was for $2 million to pair with a $3 million match
that the Port said Ambre Energy had committed. But the Port never had a
commitment from Ambre Energy, and did not have the $3 million on its own.

“To compound the problem,” Mater adds, “the Port claimed their project was
‘construction ready,’ but failed to disclose they have a serious operating
permit problem with the Division of State Lands that will negate
construction start up to a year (a fact that would disqualify the project
from being ‘construction ready’ as is required by law).”

Therefore the project was rejected, she concludes, “on the basis of not
complying with ConnectOregon legal requirements, but the criticisms—and
accolades—pouring in from the public following the OTC decision squarely
focused on the debate over Oregon’s role in coal.”

The OTC will meet to make a final decision on this and other grant
applications on Thursday, Feb. 19th, in Salem. There is hope that, even in
Mater’s absence, Commission members will respect her integrity and that of
the two members who voted with her—which Governor Kitzhaber did not
respect—and reject a fraudulent $2 million grant request so that the money
can go to legitimate, much-needed transportation improvements.

Many Oregonians have already added that OTC transportation improvements
should not include more coal trains! After all, air pollution in Asia blows
right back in our face and increases “baseline levels of ozone in the
Western U.S.” (“Pollution in West put partly on Asia,” Oregonian, Sunday,
Feb. 8, A15)

It you’d like to register your opinion to the Commission by Feb. 19th, go to
the ODOT Citizens’ Representative Office:http://www.oregon.gov/ ODOT/COMM/CRO/Pages/
contact_us.aspx
Or call 1-888-275-6368.

Let’s hope there’s a happy ending in this for Oregon!"

Feb 14Governor Kitzhaber did Oregon Romantics a good turn by
resigning on "Friday the 13th" rather than on a day later, on Valentine's
Day. He couldn't possibly have lowered the image of the Thirteenth any, but
Valentine's Day - even in the wake of a really BAD love affair - well, some
things remain sacred.

Feb 11

Corvallis's Pete De Fazio - to the Defense of
Craft Beer

Corvallis Congressman Peter De Fazio was set off by a Budweiser ad during
the recent Superbowl and is still on the rampage. "They know that the
craft beer industry is eating their lunch,” the animated founder of the
Small Brewers Caucus yelled. “More and more Americans are developing a taste
for beer that isn’t insipid and has real taste, and so they’re now starting
to buy them up.”
Burn.
DeFazio’s anger is partly due to recently watching 10 Barrel
Brewing Co. of Bend, Ore. become another local operation added to the binder
full of craft breweries acquired by Anheuser-Busch InBev – a Belgium-based
company that looks to be picking off the most successful American craft
breweries one by one.
The conglomerate boasts being the largest brewer in the world and
claims to now control 25% of global beer sales. They couldn’t have reached a
quarter of international beer sales without scooping up craft breweries in
the U.S. though, which DeFazio said starkly contrasts with their Super Bowl
message.
"So it kind of contradicts their ad. I mean, they’re trying to say,
‘Oh, come on back and buy the schlock,’ yet on the other hand, they’re out
buying up the good beer,” DeFazio said, before he added a warning. “They
better not change the formula’s cause people will just stop buying it and
someone else will replace them.”
In related news,
6 brewers have taken on the challenge of turning purified Oregon sewage into
craft beer. Says brewer Jeremie Landers, 'the water we'll be using
is cleaner than tap water you'd ever find anywhere. The purity level is
incredible.'

Ms Sunderland
appeared in court today to plead not guilty to a charge of public
indecency after photos of herself masturbating in the OSU library appeared
online. She says she did not post the photos but it matters little. She is
charged with the indecency, not with posting and unless she can prove her
body was inhabited by another, she's probably looking at a conviction.

Thomas Paul Harrington

Mr. Harrington was also sentenced for a digital crime,
specifically, with trying to lure a minor and the online corruption of a
child. In Corvallis, that has almost always meant a perp responding to an ad
placed by the police on a web site. Do any of these men, you think, realize
how ridiculous they look when their picture is posted for tapping out sex
messages to some burly - male or female - police sergeant trying to imagine
what a young kid would say? Mr. Harrington is from Vancouver, Washington and
was sentenced to 90 days.

In Salem,
Republican legislator Bill Post tried to steal Leonard Nimoy of Dr. Spock by
claiming he was a Republican. "He was a legal alien who believed in
prosperity," said Post in a speech without substance reminiscent of Bill
O'Reilly's claims to combat experience which have been steadily refuted by
those with him at the time.
In reality, Nimoy
despised the Republican Party and the values they espouse, as well
as the Republican Americans for Prosperity who function as pitchmen for the
notorious Koch brothers. In actuality, "Nimoy stood up for actress Nichelle
Nichols, who played Lieutenant Uhura, when he found out she was not being
paid as much as other supporting cast members. And he refused to take part
in a 1970s animated Star Trek TV show when he learned that she and George
Takei, who played Sulu, had been excluded." He was particularly disgusted by
the anti-science agenda which drives Republicans to flat-earth-like
theories, for example on global warming or creationism. And to making
unverifiable statements like Post's as well as to the theft of the hard work
of others. Like Nimoy.

Feb 26

Miranda Emanuelle Edwards

Ms Edwards was one of 4 who appeared to start serving
sentences for a probation violation. The other 3:

Erik Kimball

Clifford Leo Hall

Heather Lyn Reid

Christopher Michael Adams

Above: additionally, Mr. Adams was picked up on a charge
of violating probation.

Bulon Emery Dunlap

Above: a man suspected of burglarizing Corvallis
businesses last autumn
is being held in the Albany jail. As is usual in such cases, Mr.
Dunlap is another Linn County export.

Chad Ferschweiler

Above: Missing Corvallis Bright Spot and Pita Pit
proprietor Chad Ferschweiler remains, well, missing. However, several
readers have cautioned against assuming the worst, confessing instead their
own occasional desires to lock the doors and walk away from the businesses
they own. Says one, "When you own a business, people assume you're this
money machine, and have no idea how much stress is involved in making
payrolls, meeting bills, demands from vendors and the public. There are so
many times you want to just walk away from all the stress. You're not
getting richer. Just older."
No doubt.

Elsewhere in Oregon, 'the
man who shot at a police officer before killing himself in a
Southeast Portland home's backyard late Tuesday night was a former gang
member who had escaped from a halfway house in January. Quintrell Shaimon
Holiman, 26, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head as police
surrounded him and used high-volume speakers to call for his surrender. The
Oregon Medical Examiner's Office ruled his death a suicide.

59 year old Dale Allen Tripp has been charged with domestic violence
assault. In Oregon, an allegation of assault in a domestic violence
situation will nearly always result in an arrest and a no-contact order.
Little leeway is allowed the arresting officer for investigation. Past
incidents of abusers hiding behind opened doors and directing a victim's
answers while the officer investigated have resulted in laws designed to
minimize that possibility.

Chad Ferschweiler

We in Corvallis, incidentally, would gladly
trade ANY number of those sentenced to the county jail for the beloved Chad
Ferschweiler, proprietor of the Pita Pit,
who disappeared last week. Mr. Ferschweiler has occasionally taken
off for shorter periods of time but his loved ones and police are concerned
this time.

Ms Purcell has
been indicted for heroin and meth, and she has been
charged 2 times previously on similar counts, most recently last
December. Once again, we are spending an excessive amount of time and money
criminalizing addictions.

Trevor Leland James Pittam

Rocky Conser

James Clavis Kittrell

Mr. Kittrell has graduated from being
charged with drugs 4 times previously, with heroin, pot and
pharmaceuticals, to become a public menace with a new hit and run charge.
But you have to wonder, if not for the previous convictions, would the
hit-and-run have occurred?
Mr. Conser is on a new binge of arrests, this one
the 22nd time he has been charged recently, for DUII and reckless driving.
Mr. Kittrell, who also has had a
Lane County charge for theft, is facing
his 6th charge in Benton County for criminal mischief this time.

'Five
alleged white supremacist gang members are accused of kidnapping and
torturing men at a Southeast Portland auto shop because they either
"snitched'' on them or wouldn't cough up information that the gang members
wanted, according to court records.
Two of the suspected gang members are accused of forcing a man from
his Gresham home at gunpoint to Tom's Auto Painting & Body Shop on Southeast
Powell Boulevard, where they stripped him, struck him with bats and a belt,
and used a belt sander on his left upper arm, according to court documents
and Multnomah County sheriff's investigators.
After placing a helmet on the man's head, they fired a rifle at the
helmet, striking it four or five times, while they threatened to kill him,
according to the sheriff's investigation. The rifle had a silencer on it,
authorities said.
They finally injected him in the neck with heroin before leaving
him passed out on the street in his boxer shorts less than a mile away,
according to the sheriff's investigation.'

Feb 20

Dusty Lee Risland

Mr. Risland, of Philomath, has
been charged with ID theft, his 22nd time to be charged in 4 years, which includes
a stint in prison, when he was unavailable to be charged for stealing anything. Court
records show Mr. Risland was born addicted to meth and has spent his life in
pursuit of it. It's sad but true: he will likely die being shot in a car
prowl which would have netted him $1.75 if successful.
His parents laid a tremendous burden on the shoulders of a tot, and the
tot is still struggling.

Kyler Ross Wilson

Gage Tyler William-son

David Paul Living-ston

Mr. Wilson has been charged for the 6th time. In the past
it's been for meth, theft, car prowls, etc. This time it's for theft again.
Mr. Williamson is being held at the request of another police
agency. Mr. Livingston, identified on the web as
from Monroe, has been charged for the 4th time, for theft this time.

Mr. Skinner has been charged for the 9th time in a little
more than 2 years, for assault, harassment, etc. In the past, it's been for
theft, assault, etc. Mr. Skinner has been a part of the homeless youth scene
downtown.

Shawn Evan Newport

David Wayne Thompson

Stepha-nie Ryan Lanig

Mr. Newport has been charged for the 3rd time in 2 years,
for meth. In the past, it's been for drugs or theft. Mr. Thompson has been
charged for the 9th time in a little more than 2 years, for meth, etc. In
the past, it's been for meth, burglary, etc.
Ms Lanig has been charged with theft and robbery. She has
repeatedly been charged in Portland, for meth etc.

James Derby Rictor

Richard Wayne Gage

Mr. Rictor has been charged for the 8th time in a little
more than a year, for theft. In the past, he's been charged for stealing a
car, meth, etc. Like most such, he is another gift from Albany. Mr. Gage has
been charged for the 12th time in a little more than 2 years. Usually it's
been for drugs and this time it's for meth.

Above: Ms Hakes
was charged in 2011 with domestic assault. She appears to have lived
in Corvallis much of her adult life and was
well known in homeless circles.
Despite the "head trauma" phrase, homeless people who gathered at
the courthouse last night insisted that someone had emptied a shotgun into
Ms Hakes' face, a horrific scenario for her Twenty-Something daughter, they
said.
They also insisted on the disappearance of her spouse, whether before or
after the killing, none were certain.

Bobby Wade Loftis

Mr. Loftis has been charged for
the 6th time in the recent past, this time for methadone, tampering
with evidence, etc. He is listed as a registered sex offender in Philomath,
having been convicted of sex abuse and rape III in 2001 and 2009.
Additionally in Corvallis, a 68 year old man and a 37 yrar old
woman were charged with driving offenses.

Note: Everyone should be assumed innocent until convicted. There are
several sleazy websites across the country posting mugshots, utilizing
photos owned by the public, in the public domain, all run by Portlander Kyle
Ritter, which will remove your mugshot for $39 or such from their sites.
This is not one of them. Do not send in cash trying to have a mugshot
removed. It would just be a waste of your time and your money. Instead, put
your time into turning your life around. And your money into your kids.

Feb 262 years ago, the issue of net neutrality was regarded as a
slam dunk for corporate megalith Comcast and their ilk. That meant crawling
internet speeds in towns like Corvallis would not only continue but get
worse. Several grass roots efforts funded by streamers like Netflix helped
fund a grass roots effort
to turn back the tide and today the FCC responded, declaring
internet traffic a utility, like telephone service. That greatly increases
the likelihood of faster service for Corvallis residents since the public
utility poles will now be made available.
Nonetheless, Comcast is organizing Republicans for a fallback
position stripping the FCC of their power to regulate utilities and the
charge is ld by Oregon's lone remaining Republican Greg Walden, who has
served Comcast like few others. However, organizing partisan pressure to
block the Republican move to bolster profits at the public's expense would
have been a lot easier if the new Oregon governor, Kate Brown, had not
turned herself into a Comcast plaything during her stint as Secretary of
State, allowing Comcast to even ghost write the state's position when her
opinion was solicited by the FCC.

Feb 23' 'SuperFish'
advertising software recently found pre-installed on Lenovo laptops is more
widespread than what we all thought. Facebook has discovered at
least 12 more titles using the same HTTPS-breaking technology that gave the
Superfish malware capability to evade rogue certificate.
The Superfish vulnerability affected dozens of consumer-grade
Lenovo laptops shipped before January 2015, exposing users to a hijacking
technique by sneakily intercepting and decrypting HTTPS connections,
tampering with pages and injecting advertisements.
Now, it's also thought to affect parental control tools and other
adware programmes. Lenovo just released an automated Superfish removal tool
to ensure complete removal of Superfish and Certificates for all major
browsers. But, what about others?'

Eric McKinley was our local connoisseur of ska music and cafe denizen whose unit
was activated and sent to Iraq by George Bush to patrol with inadequately
armored vehicles. When Congressional funds for armoring the vehicles were
diverted by the notorious Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska (later tried
on corruption charges), Eric's unit was reduced to using plywood to give their
vehicles some additional protection. When an insurgent's IED hit Eric's vehicle,
his horrified teammates were forced to watch as the heat of the burning plywood
began exploding the grenades strapped to Eric's body. Eric, you are not
forgotten and will live forever in our hearts.